Ania Vu (née Vũ Đặng Minh Anh) is a Polish composer and pianist of Vietnamese descent whose music explores the intersections of language, time, and sounds of nature. Her method, which she calls “composing text to write music,” often involves crafting her own texts in Polish and English, which guide the sound, form, and character of her compositions.
Described by the Boston Globe as exhibiting “artful vocal writing [that] ranges from percussive whispers to glinting, pure-voiced lines,” Ania’s work has been heard across four continents, and she has received fellowships from the American Opera Project, the Tanglewood Music Center, and residencies from Yaddo, Copland House, and I-Park. In 2024, she was the Composer-in-Residence at the Chelsea Music Festival and her music has been presented at many other festivals and conferences, including PASIC, SEAMUS, CHIMEfest, Tanglewood, the Research on Contemporary Composition Conference, ISCM's Virtual Collaboration Series, Tage Neuer Musik in Regensburg, and the Red Note New Music Festival. Since 2022, she is a member of the Polish Composers Union. Ania's music has been performed by many leading ensembles and artists, including the Chicago Composers Orchestra, the New Fromm players, the Grossman Ensemble, Dal Niente, ~Nois, Flannau Duo, the Mannes American Composers Ensemble (MACE), the Daedalus and Mivos string quartets, Sō Percussion, the TAK Ensemble, and the International Contemporary Emsemble, among others. Her music has been conducted by Ben Bolton, Ken-David Masur, Stefan Asbury, and David Fulmer.
Ania served as the 2022-23 Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicago and was a 2021-23 fellow with the American Opera Project's "Composers and the Voice." She is currently a Lecturer at both the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, having previously taught at the University of Texas at Austin. Ania received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and her B.M. in composition and theory from the Eastman School of Music.
Together with pianist Eunmi Ko, they started an initiative called The Music She Writes, a series of four virtual concerts featuring 25 works by Asian female composers. This project aims to highlight the diversity and significance of music by a very large, yet underrepresented community.
Outside of music, Ania has a deep interest in languages, and speaks fluent English, Polish, French, and Vietnamese, in addition to having studied Latin, German, and Greek. She also enjoys traveling - having visited 33 countries so far -, wandering in all kinds of museums, and ballroom dancing.
Ania is also an actively performing pianist. For more information about her piano background, performances and teaching, please scroll down to Piano.
